A walk across New Hampshire showed that citizens don't just hate the current system—they're willing to act. The trick is creating a true grassroots movement.

Greg Russak's insight:

LAWRENCE LESSIGJAN 31 2014, 10:41 AM ET

As we started the 185-mile trek from Dixville Notch to Nashua, there were certain things that I knew.

I knew that our system of government had become corrupt. That the system—not necessarily any individuals, but all the individuals together—had been contorted into a shape that makes it impossible for government to address even the most fundamental and important issues sensibly.

I knew this in the way that any academic knows anything: I had studied it, across history and in its current form. I had seen numbers that captured its contours. I had spoken to people who had participated in it, both now and before it had metastasized. I knew it and believed it, and believed passionately that we have to find a way to bring more people into a movement to end it.

Truer words are rarely penned. Please read and share this Psychology Today article as far and as wide as possible.

My hope is that someday my fellow citizens who are empowering this craze of anti-intellectualism on the right will soon come to their senses.

Anti-intellectualism is possible only because it is accepted and embraced by some as somehow good and right. It is not, and it never has been.

Those who willfully allow themselves to be duped into supporting and voting for anti-intellectual and corporatist candidates need to be outnumbered in the town squares and coffee shops, in places of worship (yes, there, too), on social media and in all our news outlets, and most importantly on election day.

This means, of course, that you liberals and progressives reading this have a responsibility, too, for when you stay silent and you don't vote, you also are culpable.

I also look forward to the day when those Americans who embrace anti-intellectualism come to realize the truth that it wasn't willful ignorance and anti-intellectualism that made this country great. It was our unstoppable energy to apply our individual and collective intellect in scientific and evidence-based ways toward progress. Progress. Anti-intellectualism is the antithesis of progress, and we cannot solve our current and future problems or expand our knowledge and understanding without progress. And, it's only through progress that we can continue to move toward realizing more and more of the values any society needs to survive and thrive - equality, fairness, justice, and liberty for each and every human being.

President Obama’s effort to secure the same Trade Promotion Authority that has been delivered in one form or another to every president since FDR went down in flames on Friday, and the president’s erstwhile ally, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) lit the match, taking to the floor to denounce TPA and pledging her vote to block it. In a convoluted legislative maneuver, the House broke up a Senate-passed bill into two parts, one of which gave the president TPA, and another that created a Trade Adjustment Assistance program for workers displaced as a result of new trade flows when trade rules are changed. To send a bill to the President’s desk, at least in the near term, the House needed to pass both measures, and the House Republican leadership brought up the TAA portion first.

Greg Russak's insight:

"... the TAA portion of the trade package went down to overwhelming defeat, 126-302, with large majorities of both parties voting against it.

"The House went forward with a vote on the TPA portion – something leadership had earlier indicated it would not do – and it passed 219-211, with only 28 Democrats joining 191 Republicans to vote in favor."

political advertisers seem poised to buy ads through programmatic systems to a much greater degree than in recent election cycles.

Greg Russak's insight:

In a post-Citizens United/McCutcheon world, an informed voter is one should try to understand that, 1) money is not and ought not to be equated with free speech,

2) corporate media and their technology costs lots of money to access, and that means those with the most money get the largest megaphone and audiences (meaning we voters) and,

3) the combination of money and media is lethal to a democracy because it essentially guarantees a pay-to-play system where money controls access to information and who gets to participate in the conversation.

Now this: Programmatic ad buying comes to politics.

Let that sink in.

We are being treated as if we're nothing more than target markets to be sold to by corporatists spending perhaps billions in this cycle to sell us on voting for their proxies running for public office.

"A newly launched public relations campaign in support of trade promotion authority, a.k.a. “fast track,” and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) calls itself “the Progressive Coalition for American Jobs.” At its foundation is a set of misleading (at best) claims that begin with a four-Pinocchio whopper."

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said Wednesday that it's "really arrogant" for people to say there's a scientific consensus on man-made climate change.

Greg Russak's insight:

Assuming he's not as stupid as his statements imply, I'm left to conclude it's an abhorrent and disgraceful political strategy meant to pander to Big Money, the Fox News propaganda machine, and the Evangelical science deniers on the extreme right who make up the reliable voting blocks in GOP primaries.

In my book, BuzzFeed has all the newsworthy gravitas of Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Duck Dynasty, and Entertainment Tonight, but this is worth sharing, and here's why.

When corporations start using a cause in their marketing, it's game-over for the other side.

There's one reason and one reason only they do this. Money. We shouldn't give them more credit than they're due for doing this. They still have a long way to go to prove that they're humanists. It is, sadly, still the extremely rare exception that a corporate leader - remember, these are people who run corporations capable of making different decisions - who isn't motivated primarily by money and the selfish accumulation of vast amounts of wealth and power.

The point here is that gay marriage can now and finally begin to be considered as mainstream. Soon, it will be no more interesting or curious or culturally charged than inter-denominational or inter-racial marriage, and that is how it should be.

But for now, there's this.

Corporations recognize that those opposed to gay marriage are the minority. They don't really care if that minority is pissed off at them or decides not to shop in their stores or buy their products. The reason is simple. Because there are more of us in support of our LGBTQ family, friends, and strangers than there are who don't.

If successful, the rush to “fast track” a trio of controversial trade deals would nip attempts to implement public banking and other monetary reforms in the bud. - 2015/06/13

Greg Russak's insight:

"The entire basis for maintaining our private extractive banking monopoly may have been thrown out the window. And that could help explain the desperate rush to “fast track” not only the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). TiSA would nip attempts to implement public banking and other monetary reforms in the bud."

Diane Bell-McKoy highlighted the scale of the challenge: what breaks people is ‘broken systems’ in high-poverty areas like much of Baltimore. Clearly it will take much more than a handful of policies to turn the tide in such places. And many will only succeed if we make progress in reducing institutional and structural racism. We can hope, along with Professor Chetty, that simply learning about the reality of opportunity gaps in so many U.S. cities will mean more cities adopt such policies, and take up the challenge of promoting opportunity across America.

The economist and philosopher foresaw that capitalism had built within it the seeds of its own destruction, that the greed of a tiny elite would eventually bring down the system. The final stages that he predicted are visible all around us now. - 2015/05/31

Greg Russak's insight:

Get beyond the headline. Read the entire piece. Read it thoughtfully. Then decide.

"Marx illuminated these contradictions within capitalism. He understood that the idea of capitalism—free trade, free markets, individualism, innovation, self-development—works only in the utopian mind of a true believer such as Alan Greenspan, never in reality. The hoarding of wealth by a tiny capitalist elite, Marx foresaw, along with the exploitation of the workers, meant that the masses could no longer buy the products that propelled capitalism forward. Wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite—the world’s richest 1 percent will own more than half of the world’s wealth by next year." - Chris Hedges

A key principle of land use in the United States is that homeowners can often veto new buildings on nearby land that other people own. A trade agreement that's currently in the works could have a huge impact on that long-established system of local control.

Greg Russak's insight:

"The cure for these ills is more democracy, not less. Land use regulators should answer to the entire electorate, not to small groups of influential landowners and not to unaccountable tribunals that put the interests of big money ahead of the common good."

By any standard, it's difficult to find any president who did more harm in more ways and left the country in worse shape than this man did.

Greg Russak's insight:

"We are all influenced by our own political bias, including this author. But setting political opinions aside and just looking at the facts, it's hard to imagine any other American president who inherited a better overall national and international situation while leaving the country in more dismal shape than....................."

A new generation of young black radicals is opting for revolution—a generation that sees through the facade of the corporate state and has rejected as sellouts Obama, Sharpton, Jackson, Dyson and others among the African-American political elite. - 2015/04/26

Greg Russak's insight:

"And given the refusal of the corporate state to address the mounting suffering of the poor and working poor, draconian state repression and indiscriminate use of lethal state violence against unarmed people of color, I think the new black radical is right. It will be a long, hot and violent summer."

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.